Hello - and welcome to my guide.

As a seller of wholesale lists and after reading many listings, and some guides, I felt prompted to write this guide to help you the buyer expose untrustworthy sellers and how to determine a good wholesale list from a poor one.

EXPOSING SELLERS :

One of the hardest things to do is to determine if the seller is honest or a fraud. I think you will agree that if a seller is willing to lie to you in a forum such as a guide like this one, then there is a good chance they will also lie to you in there listings. So then there is a good chance the product they are selling is not as good  as they wish you to believe it is.
So how do you know if a seller is honest? Well lets start by exposing a seller right here in this guide. I ask you to take a quick look at the following 2 guides, written by different sellers at different times : Guide 1 and Guide 2 . Notice how the 2 guides are almost the same. Yet one starts by saying welcome to my first guide. Truth is, this seller is a copier and is unable to create there own work. A dishonest person and therefore a seller you cannot trust.( I will expect a change to his guide very soon after reading this)
Other ways to check a seller : Apart from spending many hours scanning guides, a buyer can check a sellers feedback. Feedback is the number shown next to the sellers name. By clicking on the sellers username or the number next to the name you can read the feedback they have received from buyers. It also show you a % rating. The higher the feedback number and the higher the % the better the seller and usually product also.
Use feedback to check product quality : Read the feedback the seller has received carefully. If you take a look at my feedback you will see many comments as to fast delivery and communication, but this does not tell you how good or bad my product is. Keep reading and look for comments about the actual product, this will give you a good indication as to the quality of the item you are abaout to purchase.
Another good indicator : Look for the Powersellers Logo . This is a very good way to tell a sellers honesty and product. Powersellers are viewed by ebay as trusted sellers.

WHOLESALE LISTS - GOOD OR BAD?

As you have no doubt noticed, there a many wholesale lists selling on ebay everyday. It has become very competetive and each seller will tell you there products is the best and why, leaving you to choose.
Lets start by looking at listings and cutting down the numbers : If you are in Australia and want to deal with Australian wholesalers, then buy only from Australian sellers. About 80% of wholesale list sellers are from the USA, so this cuts your choices down conciderably.
Now lets look at the listings themselves and what they offer. Firstly, you will see our exposed friend above sells about 10 different wholesale lists each with about 20 - 30 contacts in each list. He claims them to be hand picked and the best. Each list starts at $0.99 and can sell for as high as $10 or more. I find this amazing and a total waste of buyers money. The truth here once again is, this seller most likely purchased one of my wholesale lists and refurbished it into many smaller lists. My single lists contain 100's of contacts and contain every single contact in one list that this seller sells in about 10 single list. And I know this as a fact as I purchase ever wholesale list that is seller has.
Many sellers will advise you that you will receive regular updates on the list. Well this might be true, but im yet to receive a update and dont expect I will as the amount of work involved in doing this is huge. Unless the wholesale list is stored and view on-line and not sent as a download via email, I dont see a seller sending regular updates of a list - BUT I MIGHT BE WRONG!
In Australia, to purchase from a Australian wholesaler, you must have a ABN# and Business name. A true Australian wholesaler also only advertises retail or near retail prices on there sites. To obtain Wholesale prices you need to be a member. To be a member you require your ABN# and Business name. Contacting a Wholesalers by email without being registered is a waste of time, they will never answer you. So with this in mind, what good is a wholesale list unless you have all the available tools at hand to help you understand exactly what to do and how to do it. Supplying a buyer a wholesale list on its own is like giving someone a telephone book and no telephone. One is useless without the other.
So when selecting a wholesale list, be sure you get the full product you need, not just the telephone book.
Look for rash statements in a listing :  Anyone who knows anything about Wholesalers and companies will know that a Wholesaler knows exactly how many products they carry in stock and are very quick to let there new members know this information. So when you see comments on listings that make statements similar to " Some sellers claim there lists have 1.5 million products available - did they actually count them - I doubt it!"  A statement like this is a Number 1 give away that the seller has never dealt with a wholesaler, so has no idea. Look for statements like these and you can leave these seller alone also.

Australian dropshippers : As many will tell you, there are not many dropshippers in Australia -- A LOAD OF RUBBISH and again a certain give away a seller has never dealt with wholesalers. In my time I found many many wholesalers in Australia will actually dropship if asked by the member. They may not advertise the fact, but they are happy to do so.

A TIP TO BUY CHEAP

For those of you who do wish to buy the $0.99 wholesale lists here is a tip.
As these lists are all available daily and usually more than once a day, never bid more than the opening bid of $0.99. There is no need, you can always buy the next one or buy tomorrow. There is plenty available so be patient. Better to lose $0.99 if the item is not what you wanted than to lose $10 or more.

I hope you have been able to get some help from this guide.
I will be creating a full and in depth guide soon to cover all buyers needs.
In the mean time, if this guide help just one person, it has done its job.